


How to Tame Your Rogers

by SerpentsKiss



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Foursome - F/M/M/M, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Nat sees what needs done and does it, OT4, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:44:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentsKiss/pseuds/SerpentsKiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve suffers while Bucky and Sam form a relationship and become more and more wrapped up in each other. Natasha insists that something is done and patiently waits to reveal her own motives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Tame Your Rogers

Watching them together was excruciating.

Nat knew. She didn't say anything, but she knew, and her place next to Steve on the couch on Stark's movie nights began to migrate closer to his lap. The team began to talk, tease, give sidelong glances and drop witty comments, but Steve didn't care. He needed both her comfort and her silence, so he let her raised eyebrows and quirked lips speak for both of them.

For their parts, Bucky and Sam didn't seem to notice. For all that they were attuned to Steve's emotions when the couple was apart, when they were together they were painfully unaware of their effect on him. They were always touching, flirting with glances and smiles. Granted, Bucky's gestures were often so stoic, but Sam's warmth more than made up for it, and Bucky basked in his affection like Sam was the sun itself (Steve was pretty sure that Sam was the sun, too, and that Bucky was the moon and Steve himself was the helpless ocean caught between parching heat and relentless pull).

The other Avengers didn't notice at all. Steve was grateful, suspecting that they weren't so much oblivious as distracted by the diversion Nat provided. When her routine spot in the corner of the couch became Steve's, and her new perch his lap, the comments that they got began to make Steve's ears burn. Nat just smiled.

When he got home one night, he felt her behind him as he unlocked his door. He wasn't surprised, quiet as she shadowed him into the apartment and he started tea for them both. She sat on the edge of the counter just outside of the area he needed for the tea and watched.

She spoke first. “They'll never notice if we keep going like this.”

If she meant the rest of the team, that was obviously the goal. Just as obviously, she must mean someone else. Steve didn't look up, carefully peeling open a tea bag. “Isn't that the point?”

She plucked the empty paper pouch out of his hands and flattened it between her fingers. “If they don't notice, they can't make it better.”

Steve didn't want to think about that. “They can't make it better. I just have to get over it.”

“Do you?”

Her words hurt. He dropped the bags into the empty mugs and went into the living room. She followed him, of course, silent as a ghost. When he sat down in the barely-used recliner, she settled into his lap. It was so natural for him now to draw her close that he did it without thinking, and found himself grateful that he could hang on to her. Her fingers threaded through his hair while they sat.

When the kettle whistled, she got up to get it and left him in the hideous recliner. Tony had given it to him as a gift because he had said every old man needed a recliner. Bucky had said –

Nat came back with the tea and he turned his attention to taking the proffered mug. She tucked herself carefully back into his lap with her own.

She was cruel when she wanted to make you think about something, he thought. It was much later. His tea had cooled, half-full. Hers was empty, the mug set aside on a nearby table. She was stroking his hair again, still silent. Letting him be with his thoughts, but not alone with them. He would have been annoyed if he weren't so grateful.

“How could I – “ he began, and faltered.

“Sam would understand,” she said softly, and caught his head gently in the crook of her arm when he tipped forward to cry into her shoulder.

***

Of course, Tony somehow knew that she'd followed him home. When he made a crack about it, the rest of the Avengers were too reserved to say too much – thought Clint had opened his mouth before he'd met Natasha's eyes – and only shared knowing glances. Steve thought the matter was dropped until later in the evening, when a lull in the conversation let Bucky meet his eyes and ask him blandly if he'd finally broken in the recliner.

If Nat hadn't felt Steve tense and rolled out of his lap, he'd have dumped her on the floor. He stood up without thinking and slammed his glass down so hard that it – and the glass table – shattered. Everyone went still, even Bucky. If anyone else had startled him so, his assassin's reflexes would have filled them full of knives, even with the progress he'd made. But he just stared at Steve, and so did Sam, and probably so did everyone else but Steve was too focused to notice. His hands clenched and unclenched once, and then he found himself stalking blindly toward the balcony

When he was gone, Nat pulled herself back up onto the couch and crossed her arms. She stared pointedly at Bucky. “I'm not going after him,” she said flatly, her tone suggesting that the person who had fucked up had better be the person to fix it.

Bucky looked blankly at Sam, who shifted uncomfortably before he started to stand. “I can --”

A shake of Bucky's head silenced him. He paused, and only sat when Bucky got to his feet and went after Steve with that chillingly cool saunter that none of them liked to see.

Steve wasn't sure what he had expected, but the icy, emotionless voice behind him definitely wasn't it.

“You're going to tell me what the hell is wrong.” It didn't sound like Bucky. It sounded like the Winter Soldier. There was none of the warmth and humanity in it that Sam and Bucky's therapist had tried so hard to help him reclaim. The lack of emotion made Steve flinch, and he didn't want to turn around and see who looked back at him out of Bucky's eyes.

“I'm fine.” His own voice was almost as flat, and his shoulders hunched defensively at the accusation he was sure he heard in all the nothing.

“You're lying.” Bucky was closer now. Steve hunched further, resting his elbows on the balcony and staring defiantly out over New York. That voice wasn't ice. It was stone. Ice was brittle, it could be shattered, it could melt, but stone was cold forever.

It made Steve angry. All of it made him angry right now, and he gripped the balcony railing so hard it hurt. “Wouldn't matter if I was.”

The silence behind him was so sharp it was almost painful. The sound of Bucky turning on his heel and walking away made it even worse, and Steve flung itself away from the balcony railing to fling words at his friend's back like they were barbs. “Don't you see what you do to me?” He sounded raw, even to himself. He felt raw, as though every inner and outer surface of his body had become exposed nerves, right down to his throat and his lungs and even his stomach.

His ragged accusation made Bucky pause, then turn. He eyed Steve, the old part of him torn by Steve's distress and the new part of him too uncertain to take risks. He split the difference as finely as he could. “... No.”

“Damn it, Buck!” Judging by the tears on Steve's face, that was one of many wrong answers. Bucky waited as Steve spun toward the railing, then impatiently away again. He tried to storm past, to go back into the penthouse and flee downward toward freedom. Bucky caught his arm reflexively and Steve snarled, trying to shrug him off.

“... What did I do?” The coldness was completely gone from his voice, replaced by that childish uncertainty that marked the Winter Soldier's expecting one more milestone in an eternity of torture. It made Steve flinch to hear it, and he stopped trying to fight Bucky off and took a deep breath.

He had to look away when he spoke, but at least he had the lid back on his temper. “It's nothing.” Another deep breath, soothing the boil of pain inside him. “It's fine, it's nothing, you didn't do anything wrong, okay? It's not your fault. I'll be fine.”

But there were footsteps behind him, hidden under his words. He didn't notice Sam's presence until arms slid around him from behind and he was crushed in as tight a hug as Sam's un-altered human physique could manage. Bucky's default blank expression cracked into relief, and he reached out hesitantly, then with more certainty as Sam nodded approval.

Wrapped in both their arms, Steve felt like he was drowning in an odd mixture of relief and intensified emotional agony. He tried to hold it together, to open his mouth to explain his strange behavior away, but it came out a sob. The arms around him only tightened in response, Sam whispering soothing nonsense into his ear while Bucky held carefully on to them both, and Steve felt his barriers breaking, his control flooding away with the onslaught of tears.

Sam let Steve cry himself out, and Bucky followed Sam's lead. He was still so uncertain in emotional situations, and relied on Sam to show him what was right or appropriate. He'd learned to deal with a lot himself, from interacting with salespeople to not terrifying strangers in the street, and he even relaxed during movie nights, but this was far beyond what he'd relearned to handle. He was relieved when Sam spoke up first.

“I don't suppose you'll tell us what's wrong now?” His tone was far gentler than his words. “Or are you going to keep bottling it up inside until it eats you alive?”

Steve shook his head slightly, but it wasn't a refusal. Just a pause for him to mop his face on a sleeve and sniffle and swallow hard. “I'm sorry.” He winced at Bucky's slight frown of disapproval, and hurried on. “I'm sorry, I just – seeing you together, I just --”

Sam's eyes widened slightly over Steve's shoulder. Bucky still wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he was getting a grasp on it. He was startled at Sam's response all the same.

“You want James back, don't you?” Sam tried hard to keep his voice level, but there was pain in his eyes. There was pain in Bucky's heart, too, flashing into being with a percussive shock like a bomb blast. He and Sam being together hurt Steve? But he loved Sam. He could feel and understand with Sam. He could be intimate with Sam. He didn't want to _not_ be with Sam.

“No – “ Steve shook his head helplessly. “No, I mean yes, I do – Sam, I want – “ It was too hard to spit it out, to try to invite himself into a relationship that they both so carefully protected. He twisted in their combined embrace and kissed Sam fiercely instead.

For a moment, Bucky's world stopped. From the look of Sam's face, his did too. Only for a second, though. He kissed Steve back as gently as he could, then met Bucky's eyes in worried question.

There was no need for worry. Something had fallen into place inside Bucky. He knew what to do without Sam's prompting, and he pulled Steve back toward himself and cupped his face for as sweet a kiss as Sam had ever taught him.

Steve melted. Sam smiled, shifting slightly to free himself from the tangle of arms and let Bucky support Steve, kissing him until Steve was the one who pulled away. “So that's that, then?” He said lightly, watching Bucky's usually stoic face light with warmth and a glimmer of relief.

Bucky nodded, eyes still on Steve's face. Steve turned, fisting a hand in Sam's shirt and pulling him close again. His kiss this time was softer, lighter, cautiously seeking. Sam met it willingly, hand sneaking up the back of Steve's shirt and rubbing comfortingly. They were going to have to talk about this, to talk about wants and needs and desires and how to make everyone feel good about it. But for right now, this was good. This was fine.

From inside the penthouse, Nat kept a lookout in the dark. She'd shooed all the other Avengers away, and watched shamelessly herself. The puzzle pieces were finally fitting together, she thought approvingly. Three down, one to go. She could be patient.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mess. I haven't proofread it, it just fell out of my brain and is very rough. Still, I hope you enjoy!


End file.
